


A Day at the Zoo

by piratecaptainatheart



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-11 23:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3336074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratecaptainatheart/pseuds/piratecaptainatheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daria is surprised when Trent turns up at her house and offers her a spare ticket to the zoo...<br/>Slightly OOC but it's supposed to be fun! Also very slight AU (Daria is at college but hasn't gotten over her crush on Trent etc)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day at the Zoo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Weasleywasborninabin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weasleywasborninabin/gifts).



> For Amber cause she's the coolest and this is her OTP but she has read all of the Trent/Daria fanfic on the internet! :p  
> Slightly OOC/AU but it's supposed to be fun! (Daria is at college but hasn't gotten over her crush on Trent etc)

Daria thought it would just be a normal, quiet day in her padded cell of a bedroom; watching Sick Sad World re-runs, trying to block out the sound of her sister's Fashion Club meeting and generally just avoiding doing any of her Summer college work, but everything changed when the doorbell rang.

 _Jane definitely said she was with Jesse today,_ Daria thought to herself,  _must be for Quinn._

Seconds later she heard Quinn shout from the next room "Dari _aa_ , can you get the door? It’s probably Stacy, or maybe Tiffany... God, I hope it’s not _Sandi;_ I still haven’t forgiven her for going on a date with Jamie! Oh, sometimes it's just so difficult being me." She sighed as Daria slowly made her way downstairs to answer the door.

When Daria opened the door her heart leaped into her throat- Trent Lane was leaning against her door frame. Daria felt her face heat up as she suddenly remembered she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair or even get out of her pyjamas that morning.

"Hey Daria," Trent greeted her in his raspy voice.

"Uh, hi Trent," Daria exclaimed, her voice an octave higher than usual, "What brings you to hell?"  _Smooth save_ , _Morgendorffer_ , Daria thought sarcastically as Trent let out a croaky laugh, which subsequently turned into a violent coughing fit.

"Actually, I was just wondering if you wanted to come to the zoo with me?" Trent asked casually.

Daria nearly passed out on the spot, "Erm you want to…? With me... Now…? With you…?" She trailed off as she felt her face heat up even more.

"Yeah. Well, I have a spare ticket and Janey’s busy and me and Monique aren't really speaking... I mean, you don’t have to. I do think zoos are just multimillion dollar companies feeding off the natural curiosity people have to learn about the other beings that live on the planet, it just all seems a bit sick... but, well, she insisted.”

 _Wait, 'she'?_ Daria’s brain went into overdrive, _am I just gonna be third wheeling Trent and some new girlfriend? Why would he invite me along if he was on a date?  
_

Her question was soon answered when she heard a loud "Hiiiiya!" coming from Trent’s death trap of a car. A little girl of around five was waving vigorously at Daria out of the window. She suddenly understood.

"Wow Trent, didn’t peg you as the baby sitting type?" Daria smirked at him.

Trent looked down at his feet; he was the one embarrassed now, "I know, I’m a sell out. But I really needed some money to get new guitar picks." He told her, scratching his neck awkwardly.

"Aren’t plectrums, like, 50 cents each?" Daria questioned him, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“Daria," He replied very seriously, "I don’t think you understand how many guitar picks I need."

Daria decided not to question it.

"Dari _aa_!" Came Quinn's voice from the top of the stairs, "I know you really want to be popular like me but my friends don't want to-" She stopped short when she saw Trent at the door. "Ohh, sorry... I didn’t realise you were seeing anyone today... Or ever. Well, I'll leave you two alone then..."

Daria scowled at Quinn's retreating figure as she walked back towards her room, before turning back to Trent. "Give me ten minutes."

\---

Daria sat in the passenger seat of Trent's car with the little girl, 'Charlie' apparently, in the back.

"Trent _y_!" Charlie whined loudly, kicking the back of Daria's seat, "When will we get there?!"

Daria shuddered, she hated kids.

"In a bit, Charls. Don’t forget about the view along the way!" Trent reminded her, nodding towards the window.

 _Hmm,_ Daria thought, _Trent actually seems to be surprisingly good with Charlie..._

She pondered this thought as they pulled into the Zoo parking lot.

\---

They started at the farm section of the zoo, much to Daria's dismay. Charlie did not seem to feel this way, however; she squealed with excitement whenever she saw any animal, whether it was a guinea-pig, a cow, a sheep... She even let out a little yelp of delight when a pigeon landed on one of the gate posts.

"Charlie," Daria said skeptically, "You must see pigeons everyday?"

"But it's different at the zoo," Charlie replied, seeming to vibrate with barely contained excitement, "Everything is better at the zoo!"

Daria looked over at Trent, allowing a small smile to spread across her face, _yeah, I guess it is,_ she thought.

-

When Charlie went over to look at the zebras, Trent and Daria hung back.

"So," Trent began "How's college?"

"Same as high school really, just at a slightly more difficult level," Daria told him truthfully, "I should probably be working on one of my assignments right now-"

"Hey," Trent interrupted, "Don’t stress about college! I totally dropped out of high school and started Mystik Spiral and I’m still just going with the flow, and it's fine. I don’t know where life is gonna take me next... London, the Ganges-"

"A zoo." Daria finished sarcastically, her smile creeping back slightly.

Trent let out a worrying noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough, "You know Daria," he said, with a glimmer in his eyes, "You never fail to make me smile."

-

Charlie squeaked with glee when she saw the parrots, “Trenty! Trenty! Look - parrots!" From the crazy look in her eye, it seemed like Charlie loved parrots a lot.

"But I thought you wanted ice cream now?" Trent asked her teasingly, "You can’t have both!"

"Oh _pleease_ , Trenty! Can you get the ice cream while me and Daria-aria... Daria-y...?" She scrunched up her nose as she attempted to say Daria's name in a cutesy way before giving up. Daria smiled a bit at her failure, "While me and Daria go and look at the parrots?” She finished.

Trent sighed in a melodramatic fashion, "O- _kay_ , but only because it's you." He smiled at Charlie before slouching off to buy the ice cream, looking back to wink at Daria cheekily. Daria felt her cheeks flush red again.

-

The parrot enclosure was almost completely empty, bar the parrots.

"Poor parrots," Charlie said forlornly, "Nobody wants to see them."

"They probably do have visitors usually. It's just because everyone is eating lunch right now." Daria pointed out in an attempt to cheer up the child.

It seemed to work, as Charlie started making noises at the birds, and they squawked back. She then turned to Daria and in the very confident and matter-of-fact type way that only a child does, she asked "So, do you like Trent?"

Daria nearly choked on the water she had been sipping, "Wh-what?" She spluttered, eyes wide.

"I mean do you _like_ like him?" Charlie giggled, staring up at Daria.

"No!" Daria snapped as soon as she'd recovered from the shock of the original question. "He’s... Trent." She said, trying to find a valid reason why she didn't ' _like_ like' him, "He's way too old for me. He... Kinda smells as well?" Daria wasn't really sure if this counted as a reason. She had definitely noticed how he smelled over the years she'd known him and while it definitely wasn't like fresh laundry it certainly wasn't a bad or even dirty smell.

Waving her hand in a way that clearly meant Charlie had taken no notice of any or Daria's 'reasons' she cried, "You like him! Even though he 'smells'!" Charlie giggled as she did air quotes around the word smells, she had an expression of pure joy on her face, "Daria loves Trent! Daria loves Trent!" She chanted again and again, skipping around the enclosure.

"Charlie, stop. Charlie! _Stop!"_ She caught the child by the wrist and held her at arms length. “You can’t go around saying that."

"You’ve gone red!" She laughed, squirming to escape Daria's grasp, to no avail.

"Charlie, c'mon, don’t say anything like this when Trent comes back."

"Only if you admit it!" She replied, a cheeky grin on her face, "Admit it admit it admit it!"

"No, it just isn’t true." Daria told her simply.

Charlie opened her mouth wide, and began to shout "DARIA LO-"

"Fine fine fine," Daria said quickly, "God, I can’t believe you, Charlie! Yes. Fine. I like Trent. Alright, kid?"

Charlie seemed satisfied with her admission, and proceeded to gawp at the parrots some more. Then, quite unexpectedly, she said, "He likes you too."

Daria felt like she had just had a bucket of icy water dumped on her head, "What?" she said a little too quickly, turning back to face the child.

"Definitely. He always talks about you! I think I might have even heard him writing a song about you!"

Daria’s world was spinning, _don’t listen to her! She's just a kid, she doesn't know what she's talking about_ , she told herself. 

She saw Trent approaching them with three ice creams in hand and tried to calm herself down.

When he got to them Trent handed the chocolate ice cream to Charlie and the phish food with a chocolate flake to Daria.

"Um, thanks Trent... My favourite, how did you know?" She asked him, slightly taken aback.

"I remembered from my gig that time last March." He smiled, taking a huge lick of his own cookie dough ice cream.

Daria couldn’t even remember the gig, let alone whether she had eaten ice cream at it but she took Trent's word for it.

"So Charlie, were the parrots very talkative?" Trent asked, smiling at the girl as she ate her ice cream.

Charlie looked up at him, her grin wide, “They are perfect." She said, before turning back to the parrots and continuing her chatter with them.

Then Daria heard it. She thought her heart was going to stop when the first parrot exclaimed "Daria loves Trent! Daria loves Trent!" She froze as more and more parrots joined in. She looked over at Charlie, her eyes wide, the young girl was covering her mouth in an expression of shock, guilt and delight.

Trent coughed uncomfortably and, ignoring the parrots, looked over to Charlie, "Finished talking to the parrots now, Charl?"

\---

In the car on the way back, Daria was itching to get home and bury herself in her embarrassment. _How did this happen?_ she kept on thinking, _I didn’t think parrots could even remember things for that long!_ She occasionally glanced at Trent, who kept his eyes fixed on the road, his forehead creased in thought. Charlie was chattering away in the back about all the animals they had seen that day, but she seemed to purposely leave out the parrot incident.

When they pulled up at Daria's house Trent got out the car to walk Daria to her front door.

"Thanks for the ticket," Daria said awkwardly, staring intently at the ground.

"Hey," Trent said, causing Daria to drag her eyes up to meet his, "Thanks for the company." He said this with such sincerity that it made her feel a little better about the parrot incident. Trent seemed to have genuinely valued her company. Daria was about to turn and enter her house - and melt into a huge puddle of humiliation - when Trent suddenly took hold of her arm. "Listen, Daria.. I really hope what the parrot said was, y'know, true… Because if it is I, er, would like to… Maybe take you to a gig or something… Sometime?" This was the first time that Daria had ever seen Trent behave in any way other than calm if not slightly oblivious to his surroundings in the whole time she'd known him.

Daria thought she was going to pass out from shock. "Oh! Um, sure. I mean, that would be great. Just let me know when," She managed to stutter out, blushing furiously.

He nodded, a smile spreading across his face. "Okay. See you around then, Daria." He grinned and walked off down the driveway, turning back to wink at her.

Daria was about go into the house when Charlie jumped out of the car and ran up the driveway. She reached Daria, slightly out of breath, and pulled at her jacket sleeve. Daria crouched down to her height, "I told you so!" Charlie said in a sing songy voice. Daria smiled slightly, realizing that she was actually quite font of the kid. "I like you Daria, I hope you can come look after me with Trenty another time."

"You know kid, you’re not so bad yourself."

Charlie skipped off back into the car and Daria chuckled slightly as she watched the battered old thing pull out of the drive.

_What a crazy day at the zoo._


End file.
